Counterbalance mechanisms are often used to bias a first component relative to a second component. For example, a vehicle may include a counterbalance mechanism for biasing a hood or a truck deck lid relative to a vehicle body structure. The counterbalance mechanisms provide a biasing force which helps or assists in moving the first component relative to the second component. The biasing force from the counterbalance mechanism reduces the force that a user must apply to lift or move the first component relative to the second component.
Counterbalance mechanisms typically include a spring, which is used to provide the biasing force of the counterbalance mechanism. One type of spring used in counterbalance mechanisms is a spiral spring. A spiral spring may alternatively be referred to as a clock spring. Spiral springs include a flat strip of spring steel that is coiled up around an axis in a shape of an Archimedean spiral to define a plurality of coils. An Archimedean spiral may be defined as the locus of points corresponding to the locations over time of a point moving away from a fixed point with a constant speed along a line which rotates with constant angular velocity about a center.